“Twice a week, I jog in the park downstairs of my building to allow myself to shut down. I wind down completely and stop thinking. When I am jogging, I can hear a lot of sounds. Once, I realised the sounds heard from just a few steps away were already different. So, I ran back. There I discovered there was a building at the side and the sounds were already very different!” said Fuk-kuen. He thinks whether one can hear the sounds in the surroundings depends on whether the mind is calm. If your mind is troubled, you can’t hear anything.

Perhaps, his mind was calm, too, the day he encountered the ‘sounds of the universe’.
In 2012, he was a Year 4 student of the School of Creative Media of the City University, working on his graduation assignment. When he was walking on Reclamation Street, he heard the sounds of the water pipes. “I couldn’t recall which moment, but I heard the sounds of water pipes and felt very soothing, as if I’d gone to a faraway place,” he said. Since that moment, he has been attracted by water pipes, “I like how they look like bamboo sticks; like that they’re very straight and simple; like the fact that they can be found in a hardware store.” Water pipes of different lengths and diameters give out different tones. He assembled water pipes of various lengths together to form a visually pleasing installation work. It was exhibited at the Academic Building Terrace, placed facing skywards. The work is called ‘The Telescopes’, but it was not used to look into the distance. It’s used to listen to the ‘sounds of the universe’.

To See / To Listen
Since then, Fuk-kuen has become interested in sound art. He likes the intangible nature of sound, “I find it quite cool! I buy into non-physical things; the space for imagination is much greater!” He gave an example: earlier on, he and Samson led some listening exercises in the learning group. They shared a segment of the swaying sounds of a swing. Everyone had a different interpretation of this segment of sounds. Someone said he heard a lonely child playing on the swing in a park. Someone else said he heard a mammal looking for its mother. A single segment can evoke different pictures.

Later, an advanced version of ‘The Telescopes’ appeared. Fuk-kuen took park in Around sound art festival in Amino-cho, Kyotango of Kyoto in Japan in 2014. He erected four sets of installation. The top of each installation was made of two wooden bars with a water pipe above them. One water pipe was for seeing and the other one for listening. They formed a 90° angle. Therefore, what you saw would be different from what you heard. What you saw might be the tip of the mountain and what you heard might be the sound of sea waves. The four-sets were place at a different spot on the beach, integrating into the surrounding environment. He said, compared to ‘The Telescopes’, he liked this piece of work more, as this piece focused more on bringing audience a seeing-and-listening experience. It’s not a work that would give the false impression that it’s merely for visual appreciation.

Recently, he created another segment of the ‘sounds of the universe’. The tool he used was a sliding cap of a water bottle. He always surprises people!

(please scroll down for Fuk-kuen’s creation)

「每個禮拜，我都會喺屋企樓下嘅公園跑兩次步，畀自己shut down，完全停落嚟，唔諗嘢。喺跑步嗰陣，我可以聽到好多聲音。有一次，我聽到只係差幾個身位嘅地方，啲聲都有分別，於是我又跑返轉頭。原來，前少少嘅位置，旁邊有座大廈，聲音已經好唔同！」福權覺得，能不能聽到周圍的聲音，取決於心境是否平靜。假若當天心煩，就㑹什麼都聽不到。

大概他遇上「宇宙聲」那天，心境也是平靜的。

2012年，他是城大創意媒體學院的四年級生，正在製作畢業作品。在逛新填地街的時候，他聽到水管的聲音：「唔知由邊一下開始，我聽到水管聲，感覺好舒服，好似去咗一個好遠嘅地方。」從那刻起，他被水管吸引：「我鍾意佢似一枝竹；鍾意佢好直好簡單；鍾意可以喺五金舖搵到佢。」透過不同長度、不同直徑的水管，可以聽到不同音調的聲音。他把長長短短的水管組合起來，製作成一個外形美觀的裝置作品。展示地點，是學院大樓的平台，以仰望天空的角度擺放，作品名叫《The Telescopes》，但它不是用來望遠，而是用來聽「宇宙聲」。

觀／聽
自此，福權對聲音藝術有了興趣。他喜歡聲音並不實體存在：「我覺得幾型呀！我好buy非物質性嘅嘢，想像空間大好多！」他舉了一個例子，早前他和Samson在學習小組帶領做一些關於聆聽的練習，他們分享了一段盪鞦韆的聲音，大家都對這段聲音有不同的演釋。有人説，他聽到一位寂寞的小朋友在公園盪鞦韆，亦有人説，他聽到了哺乳類動物在找尋媽媽的聲音。一段聲音，可以呈現不同的畫面

《The Telescopes》後來有個進化版本。福權參與了2014年在日本京都府京丹後市網野町的「聽在」聲音藝術節，他在海灘豎立了四組裝置，每組裝置，都由兩條在頂部平放了水管的木條組成，一條水管用來看，一條水管用來聽，兩者呈九十度角，所以，看到的和聽到的，是兩樣不同的事物。看到的，可能是山的末端，聽到的，卻是海浪聲。這四組裝置，放在海灘的不同角落，融合於海灘的環境。他説，比起《The Telescopes》，他更喜歡這一件作品，因為這一件更加專注地為觀眾帶來一個看和聽的經驗，而不㑹讓人誤㑹這是一件純粹觀賞它外形的作品。

福權對日常生活有種敏銳的直覺，他也不謙虛，認為一些事物間的連結「得我先睇到」。他説：「我相信自己有啲嘢。」中學畢業時，他就是因為這些「嘢」，在毫無創作經驗的情況下，膽粗粗報讀了創意媒體。這些「嘢」，就是他的創意和想像力。

最近他又創作了一段「宇宙聲」，工具是一個滑動的水壺蓋，估佢唔到！

:: Fuk kuen’s creation in sound ::
:: 福權的聲音創作 :: 

spinner, stone, tone 旋轉、石頭、單聲調

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